A review on heat treated bearing steels for aerospace applications

Abstract

Aerospace Bearings are specially designed for aircraft systems where these bearings has to operate at high speeds like 0 Rpm to 60,000Rpm and high temperature ranges from −54 °C to 150 °C so bearing should posses good reliability, In order to ensure optimal performance level of bearing,material selection, structural design and manufacturing methods plays key role where bearings have to work at high speed and high temperature conditions and for this generally steels like AMS6491(M50) steel, AMS6444 (carbon chrome steel),AMS5930,SS,titanium carbide coated steels are used. and the key considerations for bearing reliability are material selection, structural design, and manufacturing methods where Performance evaluation and surface treatments shows effective results.in this paper it is reviewed that bearing material selection and how the operating conditions shows effect on performance characteristics are studied by introducing new materials and reliability of shaft bearing systems is also studied and later impact of conventional heat treatment methods like liquid and gas nitriding process on bearing steels like M50 Nil Steel which increases mechanical properties like rolling fatigue, wear resistance and tribological properties.